Formed of Stardust
by Legacy of Manus
Summary: Britannia has long since conquered the whole of the Earth Sphere. Goosestepped the world into misery and oppression. The country which holds as a cornerstone of its creed and philosophy survival of the fittest will now see itself pushed to its very limits to survive. Massively AU I own neither of these genre's...if I did I'd have money...
1. Chapter 1

_It is Universal Century 0079 and the uncontested ruler of the Earth's sphere by right of conquest, the Britannian Empire knows war once again._

_The colonies, massive space installations developed by the efficient military machine nearly one hundred years ago, are more prison than shelter, more noose than a leash. A place where Britannia has banished over seven billion Numbers. The cultures, societies and populations of whole continents; expelled from their conquered lands to live in the cold void of space._

_These peoples were scattered, divided up evenly, mixing the populations of India, Russia, Brazil into single colonies, segregating them with a language barrier, making the areas reliant almost entirely on import from the earth to sustain the populations. Food, Raw Materials, Power. All were controlled by Britanian supply, all could be cut off at a single command. Even the Orbits of the installations could be altered by control consoles within the palace of Pendragon._

_Beneath the oppressive, domineering Yoke of Britannian Regime the colonies and its people were driven to their knees and kept there for the better part of a century._

_Until colony eleven..._

_It was in U.C. 0075, the colonies that had been driven furthest from the earth's gravity well for the purpose of creating a way station for space faring mining operations, hunting for a pecious newly discovered alloy present on a select few asteroids; was far enough away from Britannian influence as to secretly develop its own military assets. With Britannian sympathisers cooperating within the colony, dissident forces soon ammassed enough battle strength to launch a surprise attack on the Colony closest to the Earth sphere._

_Using experimental, space combat designed Knightmare frames built from the alloys mined out of the asteroids their colony was built to process; dubbed by the rebel forces as the "Zaku" and a crude fleet of ships, the quickly denounced Terrorist forces took control of the colony, evacuated the majority of its citizens, loaded it up with nuclear worthy weaponry, and dropped it down on the heads of Britannian people of earth before a counterattack could respond. Hoping to bring it down right over Pendragon, the beating heart of the Empire._

_The Pendragon computers, attempting to counter their efforts, succeeded only in altering the target._

_It landed in London._

_Right in the Heartland of the great Empire._

_Nearly twenty million were dead in the initial blast, another six hundred million would be killed by the fallout, and countless more would fall to nuclear winter._

_The Britannian military stationed on Luna Base, led by Colonel Kewell, in a rage; set their sights on the other colonies they could feasibly reach, attacking all of the unarmed populations with every warship at their disposal. _

_Four clusters of colonies, closest to the earth; the so called "Sides", each with a population of roughly One point five billion, were utterly destroyed. In part due to anger, but also to prevent another colony drop onto the Earth's sphere. _

_Unknowingly though, this was a boon for the terrorist forces of colony Eleven and their cluster of Side three._

_With the Atmospheric turbulence of a colony re-entry, and the nuclear destruction wrought by the explosion in the heart of the empire. Most forms of travel from Earth to Space were suddenly, and violently cut off. The logistical disaster meant that no help would be forthcoming for the Britannian forces of Luna Base, and no further supplies could be delivered to the colonies._

_With their lifeline suddenly cut, the Terrorist group, now proclaiming itself the United Colonial Republic, (U.C.R.) saw an opportunity to gather more to their side._

_Re-purposing entire colonies, the rebels turned what were essentially utterly isolated population bubbles into various hubs. Turning some into burgeoning homes where the vast majority of the non combatants would be allowed to live, freeing other colonies in order to transform them to, to individual self contained, industrial powerhouses, farming communities and battle stations, the U.C.R for an entire year, worked tirelessly to break the Britannian stranglehold on the space installations. Colonel Kewell's actions had not only rallied inflamed masses to join the rebels, given that the Purist Britannian had attacked unarmed civilians, in no way involved or responsible for the original attacks, but had also, inadvertently, made it possible for the U.C.R. To feed the people of space with their extremely limited food supply._

_Kewell had also, inadvertently, provided the rebels with the raw materials needed for their own war machine. _

_For while his people starved inside the Britannian Luna Base, the consolidating U.C.R. forces were able to gather the remains of the shattered colonies. Metal alloys, concrete, wood and other raw materials that could be found in any colony but were unavailable for re purposing, could now be extricated from the wreckage; melted down and reshaped into logistical projects. _

_Comunication hubs, roads, small arms, vehicles, ships and manufacturing equipment to more efficiently gather the strong alloys needed to build the machine that was rapidly becoming the versatile symbol of the U.C.R military; the Zaku Mobile suit._

_Standing at 17.8 meters, with a final tonnage of 78.3, the Zaku Mobile Suits, as the manufacturers dubbed them, dwarfed the much smaller Britannian standards, the Glasgow and the Sutherland both of these standing at roughly five meters. With armor three times as thick, and nearly twice as dense and strong as normal steel; any engagement between a Zaku and a Knightmare was an engagement that could only have one outcome. _

_Couple that with the fact that Britannia had no need to truly develop the Knightmares for space combat and the forces of the U.C.R had their run of space, virtually unopposed. _

_To Britannia, the colonies had been a conquered and broken people, divided by language, logistics, with no supplies, ships, no communication means; and if any of them did get seditious views they were a button press away from having their colony flung into the sun._

_Now the Rebel forces, after long years of consolidating and cementing their hold on the colonies, and capturing the Britannian Stronghold of Luna Base have uncontested control of the void while the Britannian empire girds itself for the storm all know is coming and prepares itself to wipe these rebels and their colonies from the face of the solar system as they should have done when they were first conquered._

-U.C.0079-

It was snowing.

It snowed almost every day now.

The sun's light on their surface was a fleeting dim thing. His scientists, more than the need to develop more powerful Knightmare Frames, needed first to save them all from dying a miserably cold death.

They'd succeeded, somewhat at any rate.

The nuclear winter was cut down. But only just. Instead of year round snow, they had it instead for six months of the year. With the worst points being of course the natural winter season of November, December and January.

The ecosystem of the planet was in tatters, the vast majority of wildlife that survived did so in special habitats, the food they produced was forged in massive agricultural domes where their climate was carefully maintained by artificial power.

Before war, Britannia was doing everything in its power to simply _survive_.

Now though...now these upstarts would feel the full might of the empire that had broken the globe once before.

"Your Highness." The voice of his Knight of One brought the Emperor's attention.

"Speak." His voice was like an oak tree, old and strong, carrying across the expanse of the throne room easily.

Bismark bowed. "I am here to report on the progress of the new Knightmare frames. According to reports they should be ready for mass production within three standard months.

"And the prototype?"

"To be delivered as per your instructions sir."

Charles brought his eyes up towards the gray, cloud covered sky.

He missed the Sun...such a strange thing to realize...

Thunder rumbled in the overhead sky and the Emperor closed his eyes a hidden smirk fighting its way onto his lips as he whispered the battle-cry/demand that had felled entire nations.

"_All hail Britannia."_

-U.C. 0079-

The Black Prince stormed into the command center a deep scowl on his features as he made his way towards the tactical display. "Report!" He barked.

"We have atmospheric breaches in sectors nine, twelve, seventeen and six Your Highness, Now sector four. We're getting incoming reports of landing parties of both ground infantry and armor."

"Zaku Mobile Suits?"

"None sighted yet Your Highness.!"

That would change shortly he knew. Knightmares could hold off their ground forces until the Zaku's made landfall. Once that happened, things would get...problematic.

The entire island was blinking up at him with red warning signs. The Black Prince eyed it with with a grim countenance.

70% of the Earth's Sakuradite, the supply of power for all Knightmare Frames and most modern population habitats was sitting right under his feet. Everyone knew that this spit of dirt would be the hardest hit when the U.C.R. decided to make planetfall.

Already he was getting reports of attacks in North Americas' California coast line, Mexico, Argentina, the Chinese eastern coastline and Australia.

They were being cut off from the rest of the Empire power bases closest to them.

Cornelia was in Africa, the country was too great a gold mine of raw materials and natural resources to lose, Scniezel was in North America, a similar hub, one with easy access to any ocean the Britannian military needed to reach being just a stone's throw away from the former territory of mexico.

The closest sibling he had to aid him, if at all possible, was Clovis in what was once China. But knowing his brother's lack of tactical skill, he couldn't count on reinforcements if he got in a bind, more likely than not, Clovis would be under more dire straights than himself and would soon be asking _him_ for help.

So that left him within the confines of Area Eleven, or the former Japan, sitting on the worlds largest deposit of Sakuradite and the place where the hammer blow would fall like the fist of an angry god. The rebels **wanted **Knightmare production to cease, and cut off the already existing ones from the fuel needed to keep running.

If Japan fell, all mathematical calculations showed the Empire's military and civilian framework would collapse internally within six months, that's not factoring in the rebels themselves.

This wasn't like running a guerilla campaign, hit and run tactics, here, he had static defenses to hold, emplacements to keep, strategic locations and production sites that couldn't be abandoned. Here, it was the enemy that would choose when and where to attack and he couldn't _be_ everywhere at once for his strategies to ensure victory.

Curse Charles. Assigning him to this deathbed. The old bastard _knew_ this would be the case from day _one._

Still...he wouldn't die here...he _refused_ to die here. If nothing less then out of sheer _spite_ to not give that bastard the satisfaction of his death.

"Get me Jeremiah!" He barked, a second before the communications officer turned in his chair to face him.

"Your Highness enemy Zaku armors have been sighted!"

"Mobile?"

The ensign nodded, fear visible in his gaze.

The Black prince growled. So...they **did** have a way to make those monsters functional in earth's gravity...

"This wasn't anything we didn't expect." He assured. Looking down at the tactical layout the prince's mind began the workings of a plan.

-U.C. 0079-

The cockpit shook and _thrummed_ with turbulence, red safety lights casting dark shadows across the surface of the machine's controls.

A voice came through the comms. Ohgi's voice.

"Kallen."

Excitement _tingled_ the fingertips, blood _thundered _through her veins. The pilot couldn't contain the smile on her face if it killed her. "Ohgi..."

"Preliminary scans indicate enemy battle strength consists of twenty-seven Knightmare Frames, Sutherlands. There is heavy air traffic being monitored from the air base. We can't let them get those bombers airborne. We have to secure the base before they have a chance to mobilize their bombers and fighters. Zaku's are big enough targets for their missiles, even if they're not guided."

"Understood." She grinned. "Just give me the time limit."

"Seven minutes from the second you touch ground. Remember, the weight of gravity means-"

"Ohgi." She drawled smirking at his face. "Who was it that aced every ground based combat simulation?" 

"Don't get cocky!"

"Relax. You just keep us updated on the status of the enemy movements _operator_ and we'll deal with the rest." She smirked and a second later the computerized voice spoke.

_Now approaching designated drop-site all forces, prepare for deployment, T-minus sixty seconds._

The sounds filtered in now, the rapid _rat-tat-tat_ of anti air fire that was no doubt, deafening up close sounding like little more than raindrops behind the curtain of steel. Turbulence shook her within the cockpit as they were dropping down past the last cloud cover, hurdling towards the hard packed earth of a planet she'd never set foot on.

Britannia's world.

She grinned, time to burn it down. Give these bastards a taste of their own medicine.

The strange, unnatural feeling of weightlessness ended abruptly, the crash shaking through her mobile suit and up her legs to rattle every bone in her body as the drop pod struck ground with the sound of _thunder_ and the door smashed open to reveal the snowing, gray light of day to her eyes. The red security lighting turning off a second later to reveal the flashing lights of gunfire, the splendor of an old earth battle vid played out right before her eyes.

One she was about to become a part of.

"Don't be nervous." The voice came through the comm link, almost soft spoken despite its strong timbre. A face appeared on the holo-screen. Their squad commander, Matsunaga. A middle aged, bearded man, the silver in his hair now creeping up the sides. He might have been Britannian, or a former American, or had some mixed ancestry despite his Japanese name...like her. "The principles of space combat in a Zaku hold true on the ground as well. Strike near blind spots, don't let the enemy get behind you to hit the engine block. Do these two things, trust your armor, and you'll be fine."

She nodded; smirking. "Its Tamaki you need to worry about."

"Hey!" The third member of their little suit team shouted, evidently having been listening in. "I'll beat every Britannin here before they even scratch the paint job!"

"Enough." Matsunaga demanded, clicking on all machine systems and drives, the Zaku coming alive beneath his feet as he stepped off the drop pod, bringing his weapon to bear. "With me!" 

"Death to Britannia!" Tamaki _screeched_ as though he hoped half the Britannian military would hear him through the cacophony of battle.

-U.C.0079-

"Mobile suit units sighted in sectors three, and twelve, preliminary analysis has identified three more transports punching through the atmosphere."

"Analysis will tell us their projected landing zones in thirty seconds."

"First Lance Base has fallen."

"We have Zaku mobile suits closing in on Knightmare fighter groups seven fifteen and twenty four they're requesting reinforcements."

"Battalion three has been wiped out, sixth and eleventh are in full retreat back to Angel base!"

"Aurek forward base is under heavy attack they're asking for permission to fall back!"

"Transports will land near areas two, four and-"

The screeching of all voices faded into the background of his thoughts, the patterns and movements of the enemy across the whole island becoming crystal clear in his eyes as his thoughts settled and spread across the tapestry of war.

He pointed. "Here!"

The gloved finger was pointing right over a patch of territory that was all but empty, now being guarded over by a single team of enemy mobile suits the rest of the fighters and battle strength of the unit advancing across the map to engage the Britannian defensive arms men

"Your Highness?" One of the men at his side questioned.

"Send all our reserve units to this sector immediately! This is where the main force will make groundfall."

"Sir there's nothing the-"

"Do not question me again! Do it now! All reserve forces!"

"Y-yes your highness!"

With a single phone call Five carriers idling off the coast came alive with movement. A slew of fighter jets, bombers and dropship Knightmare carriers, exploding from their decks to fly out towards the Japanese mainland.

His order given, the Black Prince turned his eyes back to the screen, refocusing on the battles at hand.

"Tell battalions six and eleven to change their course. Retreat to sector five to reinforce battle group thirteen. Tell the bombers of Air base Malaik to scramble and drop bombs at coordinates 1612-0589. Order the Aurek Base forces to hold position for fifteen more minutes then they're to retreat to sector nine-"

-U.C.0079-

The heat of the thrusters made the armored skirt of the mobile suit glow red hot. The machine gun's barrel smoked half her magazine spent destroying gun emplacements and the paltry number of Knightmare frames defending the airbase.

She saw at least one squad of bombers and their fighter escorts shoot off the run-way just before they arrived. A second before they began destroying whatever was still on the ground. They let them go, not like they had a choice. The Zaku, like the Knightmare Frame before it was anti-everything _but_ high-speed/high altitude aircraft.

The control tower came down first, three rounds from Tamaki's machine-gun obliterating the glass structure atop, with the Glasglow and Sutherland frames doing their best to hold them off, machine gun fire literally scratching off their armor bit by bit, but unable to pierce the superdense metal of the towering Zaku Mobile-suit.

Now the three of them were on their way towards the Main Airbase Headquarters. A dome like structure sitting pretty at the end of the landing strips. They were spread out in a wide formation to make it harder for the enemy to try and circle behind them unnoticed.

Ohgi's face appeared on their screens. "T minus three minutes before launch. You have to take over that HQ, if you don't we run the risk of the enemy discovering our main landing site before we're ready.

"It will be done." Matsunaga assured.

"You worry too much."

"How are the other fronts?" Kallen asked, her eyes set on the building ahead.

"All is going well. With Zaku's as the spear tip we're pushing back the enemy forces comprised almost entirely of Knightmares. We've had thirteen casualty Zaku suits so far. eight disabled, five destroyed; but we're driving them back." She smirked as she heard Tamaki whoop in celebration.

Then she saw Ohgi's face become alarmed.

"We have incoming contacts, ten, no, twe-fourty! Fifty enemy contacts coming in at high speed!"

"What!?" 

"Aircraft" Ohgi was furiously typing on his computer. "Coming from the Northern side of the island, they're bypassing whole battlefields, they're headed straight for you."

"They're headed straight for the landing zone." Matsunaga cursed.

"No way! No one knows about it but us!" She cried.

"The enemy has seen our move." The veteran devicer opened up another channel. "Tohdoh!"

The grim face of the sector commander, leader of this sector Invasion force appeared.

"I know Shin." The man drawled. The enemy command has predicted our movements here, the main force is walking into a trap."

"We have to warn them!"

"Its too late, the atmospheric entry ships can't change course, its a dead drop."

"What are we gonna do!"

"I'm rerouting all battle groups that I can spare to you, the closest one is seven minutes away, the three of you must take that base and hold the landing area until they arrive! If they're allowed to destroy our supplies we'll have no way to maintain this campaign! Japan is the most important target. If you fail this entire invasion might fail."

"No pressure!" Tamaki cursed.

"I will join you personally, my ETA is twenty-two minutes!"

"The battle might be over by then." Matsunaga drawled. "Stay where you are, you'll be more use leading the charge."

Tohdoh looked grim faced before he slowly nodded. "Understood. I'll try to cause enough damage for them to divert some of their reinforcements to my location." 

"Understood."

"There they are!" Kallen cried, finding on the northern horizon the multiple glimmers of britannian aircraft closing in fast.

"Proceed to the HQ." Shin Matsunaga barked. "Plant yourself right ontop of that building! Use it as cover!"

"You think these Britannians have enough honor to not fire on their own to take down three Zaku!?" Tamaki barked.

"Just do it!"

"Alright alright fine!" The impertinent Japanese shouted back 

"Knightmare frames" Ohgi warned, "Dropship carriers are deploying them now."

"How many dropships."

"Ten!"

"Fourty Knightmares." Kallen breathed.

The Zaku was stronger, better armored, better armed, more powerful. But such held true for the Lion and it could be taken down by a pack of Hyenas' if the beasts ever got the mind for it.

-U.C.0079-

As the sky literally fell down around him and the surface of the globe erupted in fire, Schniezel waited for a guest while he drank his morning tea.

The pale white snow fell over the carriers window panes while clouds, black and violent with atmospheric disturbance roiled with thunder and flashed with lightning as the sun made its daily, valiant effort to pierce them.

"Shouldn't you be leading your men?"

The Britannian prince drawled as he answered. "Unlike the smaller territories, where every square mile is precious, the North Americas are a great expanse. We will lose areas. I've bolstered valuable defensive locations, left token resistance at the rest. The enemy will take ground, it is inevitable. My job begins when it is time to root them out."

Loyd nodded, taking a seat, not waiting for leave. "Yes yes I see. So what'd you call me here for, hmm? I have a lot of work to get to."

The prince sipped his tea, paying no nevermind to Kanon's angry glower at the side of the room, or that of his men, each glaring at the scientist for his impertinence.

"You've had four years." He drawled. "I've thrown a fortune your way, and left you alone. It is time, I believe the phrase goes, to pay the piper Earl."

"Ahh yes." The silver haired scientist seemed to remember. "Your whole 'Make our Knightmares strong enough to take down Zaku's thing; yes? Well I'm sorry to say no progress has been made on that front, can't be done. I transferred all that money to my own personal account and dithered with it what I wanted."

Schniezel felt he had to go so far as to hold up his hand to keep his soldiers from shooting the man dead.

It was no secret that he had thrown nearly half his net worth at the eccentric Knightmare designer, as a _start_ four years ago.

"I hope you plan to elaborate." While his tone never shifted from the placid, calm, measured grace, the warning was made more insidious by the near invisibility of it.

"Well you see." Loyd looked over the perfectly arranged table, beside them and proceded to take the assortment of various forks and laying them across one by one as he spoke. "Technology progression one o one your highness. What we build, we rarely replace, we just build over it." He grinned.

"Imagine if you will-" He laid down a slim oyster fork. "A nineteenth century telegraph yes. Marvelously advanced for its time, dreadfully primitive by our standards today. But the thing is, we're still technically **using **the telegraph. Just with a different face."

He laid down another, slightly larger, desert fork. "So the Telegraph, evolves, a new face, phone lines and radio cables connect the globe's communications not simple power cables that hold a charge every time you tap, yes."

He lays down a salad fork. "Then from phones we have cable televisions, still the same principle but now breaching into the wireless age with satelites going into space so that people can find their favorite shows from all over the world and communicate with wireless cell phones." He laid down a fish fork.

"Finally." He laid down the last fork, the Dinner fork. "The internet. The world is connected instantly, anywhere, at any time, the principle of the wired telegraph has evolved and held true, now instead of operators connecting people to different or direct lines, we have servers and hubs that do it. Its still the exact same thing, only faster, more advanced."

"And the Zaku's are different...how."

"Well its simple, with the colonies we did something we'd never managed to do before. We showed the savages. 'A Car.'" He held up his own fingers in quotation marks. "And then managed to completely cut them off from it in all manufacturing capacity. The colonies have no Sakuradite to mine, they have no factories or plants to process it even if they did. They don't have the engineering or the knowledge of Yggdrasil drives to make it themselves. So they had the _idea_ of a _car_ in their head, but no means to make it come true and thus, they were just left with the _idea_ and the mother of all technology; innovation and time."

Here, Loyd picked up two spoons, and "branched off" between the fish and salad forks.

Schniezel stared at the display literally laid out before him for a good thirty seconds before he finally spoke.

"I see. So you're saying just as they have no means to recreating our Knightmares, we have no means of recreating their Zaku."

Loyd nodded. "The metal alloy mixture comes from asteroids, they currently have a monopoly, or near enough as to not make a difference. But most importantly, the power core of the machine is covered in particles we simply can't create on earth."

"The Minovzky effect..." 

Loyd nodded. "The Minovzky particles are only capable of being quote/unquote 'born' in zero gravity environments. After they're formed they can sustain themselves just fine. But we can't get past the initial hurdle of _making_ them. As for simply making Knightmare frames bigger and shoving in more Sakuradite, that simply won't be practical in any sense of the word."

"Its too dense." The prince said ahead of him, making Loyd nod.

"Exactly. Sakuradite is an immensely heavy mineral, the energy fillers, as you know, are mostly armor rather than tank space. There's a reason the Mordred, a machine with a Yggdrasil drive only thirty percent larger than most machines, is also unbearably slow. Its not slow because of its armor, we just put all the armor on it because we had no means to keep it alive long enough to deliver its payloads and that's just thirty percent. To move a Zaku, a machine over four times the size the height and weight of our Knightmares we would have to shove a Yggdrasil Drive ten times the size of a normal one just to get the bloody thing moving."

"So what have you come up with?"

Loyd grinned impishly. "So glad you asked your highness."

-U.C.0079-

Kallen cursed as flames bathed the Zaku from head to toe, the heat of the Napalm hissing through the thick metal plates enough to make her sweat in the cockpit.

"Are you alright!?"

"I'm fine!" She snapped, shooting at three more Knightmare frames that scrambled to get out of the way.

"Focus on the Knightmares, we can't leave these ground forces here when our landing craft arrive, the carriers will be ripped to shreds." Matsunaga cursed as an overhead missile slammed into the Mobile suits shoulder shield, rattling the hardwired camera violently on its mount.

"Its like trying to swat a swarm of flies!" Tamaki cursed, firing with the machine gun at the quick Sutherlands that weaved and turned in practiced moves on their land spinners.

Kallen cursed. No doubt, in space, the Zaku had mobility to spare, here on the ground though, with land spinners, the Knightmares were doing a fine job of keeping themselves alive through sheer mobility.

One shot from the Zaku standard machine gun though was all they needed, and taking careful aim, Kallen found she was becoming quite the marksman under earth's gravity and the effects of air on the bullet.

She'd taken down seven, Matsunaga had taken down five and Tamaki three by the time the clouds burst open with atmospheric entries. Exploding like an overstuffed bag with trails of fire descending from the sky.

Air to air firepower was leveled on the swarming fighters, with missiles streaming across the sky to smash into fuselages and bulkheads. The fire of the atmosphere exacerbated the flames of ruptured fuel lines. The screams and angry, confused shouts of soldiers and commanders on various bridges exploding through the static of the radio as the Britannian airforce climbed up to meet them in an areal charge, their advanced engines refusing to stall in the near dead climb against gravity.

"This is Landfall team four what the hell is going on down there?"

"The landing zone is hot captain!" Matsunaga shouted back through the radio cursing as he tried to force the thrusters to keep pushing for a few extra seconds to carry him far enough to get the remaining Knightmares infront of him. They couldn't be allowed to shoot the engine. "I repeat, the landing zone is hot!"

"I gathered that!" The man shouted back.

"We have multiple Knightmare contacts and bombers." You have to launch any firepower available to you the second you land. We're still outnumbered almost ten to one down here."

"How did they find out that this was our landing zone!"

"Commander!" Kallen shouted. "North west!"

Shin looked to his sensors, turning to face the seven approaching Knightmare frames, each bearing a standard emblazoned on their chest armor.

"Who is it!?" Tamaki shouted over his own gunfire.

"Ohgi!"

"On it!" The operator responded, fingers flying over the keys on his computer. "Data records indicate that's the heraldry of the Black Prince of Britannia! Prince Lelouch Vi Britannia!"

Kallen grinned. Now they had a face to go with their adversary. "We get to kill a prince today."

"More likely its not the Prince himself, but his Personal Knight, Sir Jeremiah Gottwald!" Ohgi responded. "He's an Ace devicer. He won't go down easy!"

"We'll see about that!" Tamaki shouted, turning the Zaku and charging headlong towards the seven Knightmares.

"Don't!"

The seven Knightmares, turned, on screeching land-spinners they split up with two firing their slash harkens, the one that went left, shooting it towards the right leg of the Zaku, and the one that went right shooting them towards the left leg.

With the forward movement of the machine, the thick cables tangled through the suits legs,

Three of the remaining Knightmares charged forward, while the last pulled up behind the Zaku and let loose its full magazine straight into the engine block.

The machine held up for a whole second before anti armor rounds the size of a car tire punched straight through the thinly armored pannels to hit the engine core, as the Heat-hawk was drawn and powered up to cut the lines. Tamaki shouted in outrage a second before his machine went dead, his angry shout cut off as the suit lost all power and fell flat on its face.

"Tamaki!"

"Kallen, back to back! Don't let them hit the engines."

She did as instructed, jumping back with a quick burst from the thrusters before falling beside Matsunaga.

The Zaku armor rebuffed the Sutherland machine gun fire easily, but there were so many of the machines Kallen was beginning to get nervous as more and more yellow warning signs appeared over the suits diagnostic display; showing the increasing damage as the Knightmares were literally trying to kill her and Matsunaga with bug bites tearing apart the mobile suits bit by bit.

"Brace yourself!"

She did, locking down all systems and mobile suit joints as she and Shin both knelt a second before the landing craft hit the ground in fireballs! Enveloping the whole battlefield in thick clouds of ash and debris.

-U.C.0079-

There were six machines.

The design and aesthetics were more akin to Knightmares than Mobile Suits, but they were of comparable size to the latter.

"So what have you done then?" He questioned from where he stood on the observation deck.

"Well..." Loyd began. "Ever since they first appeared we've had a handful of encounters, skirmishes in space with the Zeon forces. And while, militarily we've been losing, logistically we're still ahead of the rebels. Even after our losses we've been able to recover battle field debris much more efficiently and quickly than the rebel forces, since most of their recovery efforts were centered around the destroyed colonies."

Schniezel waited patiently.

"With the materials gathered we roughly, had the raw stuff needed to make about eighteen Zaku. So with a bit of elbow grease, greased palms and know how, we revamped the design, added our own tech to it and voila. Eight prototypes."

"You don't have a single unit ready for mass production!?" Kanon gasped, horrified. No war could be won with just eight weapons.

Loyd looked insulted. "I wouldn't lower myself to making cheap, reproducible machines. I leave that to the grunts at Pendragon." He sniffed haughtily. "These machines, by every calculation are worth ten Zaku apiece. Easily."

"How'd you make it past the logistical problems we discussed?" The prince questioned.

"Well its simple, we carefully extracted the Minovsky particles from the usable Zaku engines that we could find, something that sucked up most of the money to be honest, put them in a vastly superior engine block, and then juiced it up with a Yggdrasil drive for that extra shot of happy juice.." The mad scientist grinned. "These things have more power in a single arm than a Zaku army has now. The armor is a mixture of the Ultra-steel Zaku compound and my own little mixtures that make it, lighter and stronger than the Zaku."

At that, the prince raised an eyebrow.

"At any rate-" Loyd continued. "Two of the machines use a mixture of Sakuradite and Minovsky reactors for power and motor control and the same mixture for weaponry. Two more use pure Sakuradite for weapons and Minovsky particles for suit power and the other four we just went kinda crazy with. Can't really stick all your eggs in one basket. But all power sources are proven functional and all closed circuit tests have estimates and projections stating that each of these machines can _far_ out perform the rebels Mobile suits in every field. Like comparing a Glasglow to one of the Knights of Round custom machines."

Schniezel stared at the covered silhouettes. "The engine block is still a major weakness of the machine though. Similar to how the cockpit of the Knightmare is the frames greatest fallacy.

Loyd's triumphant smirk, suffered. "Ahh...well that's why these machines will only be headed for the best of the best. Pilots that can handle them and make sure that no stupid mistake like letting the enemy get a clear shot at the engine block occurs."

"Cornelia for certain." The prince commented, more to himself than anyone.

"Well here we are." Loyd nearly danced out of the elevator cart. He marched right to to the first, tarp covered machine and grabbed at it with both hands before pulling it.

It was rather absurd to try really. The Machine was nearly twenty meters tall maybe even a little taller, the tarp alone, as lightweight as it might be, was far more heavy than any one person could pull on their own. It took the Scientist a good moment to realize the futility of his exercise before he released it, cleared his throat and drawled. "Excuse me."

Without further adue, he left. Returning a moment later with a forklift.

Tying off one end, he drove the thing in reverse, using it to pull the tarp down revealing a white, super-sized Knightmare Frame.

"Ta-dah! I present your highness the Lancelot!"

The machine was, quite frankly, a work of art, at least in the aesthetic appeal, especially when compared to the Zaku or the purely militaristic design of the Sutherland

"Its capabilities?"

"We'll get to that in a moment." Loyd waved him off tying another tarp. "We have so much more to show off."

The next was a strange red frame with a distinctive long claw. And the Prince could only imagine the strangeness of the rest of his designs after four years and a near limitless budget could allow.

-U.C.0079-

The dust was so thick, his Knightmare was actually moving sluggishly. The sheer weight of dust and dirt bearing down on him was slowing the machine significantly.

"Lord Jeremiah-" 

"I know Villeta!" He growled, the land-spinners skidding on the ground. "All units switch to thermal imaging!"

Bright red outlines came in stark resolution on his screen. Thermal sensors easily picking out the Zaku engines through the blackened haze.

Gunfire erupted from the two and immediately Jeremiah found six more four more Knightmares vanishing from his sensors.

Evidently the Zaku's had thermal cameras too.

"All units, ignore the Zaku's!" He ordered. "Ignore the Zaku mobile suits. Focus all fire on the landing craft! I repeat, ignore Zaku mobile suits and focus all fire on the landing craft before they have a chance to scramble their ground troops. Our orders are to cause as much damage as possible before we're bogged down with enemy fire.

"**Yes my Lord**!"

On screeching land spinners all Knightmares disengaged from the Zakus, making bee lines for the various landing craft and hoping more didn't land right over their heads, shooting into cargo holds and control bridges, almost with wild desperate abandon as the last of the missiles from the fighters came smashing down from on high, unleashing a rain of burning slag to fall from the towering HLV transports.

Jeremiah sped through the chaos of the battlefield, expertly laying down fire where it would cause the most damage against the HLV's and their cargo. He'd read the specs on the machines extensively before the mission, memorizing them practically down to the most minute detail.

The com screen came alive with a priority message. Picking it up immediately he answered. "Yes Your highness?" 

"You have three more minutes to fall back. All Zaku forces in the area are converging on your location. Any longer than three more minutes and you won't be able to break the encirclement without further losses."

"I understand your-" The Knight cursed as he suddenly turned the machine violently to the side to avoid the gunfire, the land spinners nearly getting shorn right off at the abrupt, terribly executed swivel that nearly threw him into an uncontrolled spin.

One of the Zaku's was rushing towards him, its massive feet pounding the ground in intermittent Thruster jumps to try and cover the distance as fast as possible without burning the engine off.

"Jeremiah!"

With a mental plea to forgive his impertinence, Jeremiah cut off the feed, throwing his full attention onto the Zaku, shooting with the Sutherlands machine gun at the armored behemoth.

Land spinners spun to weave between the bullets, in a wild zigzag in an attempt to try and dodge the fire, but the thing was too close and its pilot too accurate.

With a deafening **smash **that rattled his whole body and rang through his skull in a high pitched _ring_ the Knightmare's leg was blown right off at the knee, its arm exploding a second later as his machine toppled over.

He could see the thermal outline of the Zaku looming over him, his whole life slowing to a crawl as the barrel was leveled down on him, his hand moving as fast as he could for the ejection lever.

"My lord!"

A lunatic pilot, for that's all it could have been, charged into the fray, shooting right at the Zaku's armor plated face and chest, its slash harkens firing up to cut right into the _gun_, tearing the Zaku's weapon open and pulling it away from its target.

Jeremiah's fingers hesitated over the ejection lever, watching in fascination as the Zaku drew its heat hawk, the heat alone bathing half his screen in red as the unknown Knightmare pilot dodged and weaved, skirting under the swings and using the retracted slash harkens to pull itself at greater speeds in either direction, with force that could snap a normal pilots neck.

"Lord Jeremiah!" Villeta's voice snapped him out of his stupor and he yanked hard on the ejection lever, the cockpit flying free of the frame only to be caught by Villeta!

As soon as he could he opened a channel to the pilot. "Pilot retreat! I am out of my knightmare pull back immediately!"

"Understood sir!"

There was the sound of rent metal through the com link and Jeremiah knew the pilot had been hit. "Pilot."

"Just an arm sir!"

-U.C.0079-

"Damnit!" Kallen snarled slamming her fist against the side monitor. "I almost had him! I almost goddamn _had _him!" She shouted, a throaty howl that echoed her frustrations through the cockpit.

One goddamn sutherland! One goddamn sutherland had stopped her from killing one of Britannia's Royal Knights!

She'd kept track of Jeremiah's knightmare specifically for this. To hunt him down in the debris field.

She grabbed her Zaku's controls and nearly took off in pursuit before Shin's voice stopped her.

"Kallen that's enough! The enemy is retreating and we've taken too many losses so far. We have to secure the LZ and assess the damage. Do not engage in pursuit!"

She sucked down a breath through her nostrils the heat rolling off the edge of her heat hawk was miniscule in comparison to her temper. "Understood." She bit out.

-U.C.0079-

Lelouch allowed his white knuckled grip on the metal hand rails of the map display to relax as he received confirmation of Jeremiah's survival and extraction. The second his trusted knight's sutherland signal had been lost his heart had dropped into his stomach in worry.

As instructed, the Knightmares proceeded towards the series of coordinates provided, slipping past the tightening noose of Zaku's and ground forces to regroup at the nearest, still intact military base before they would each be transported/transferred to the holdings the Britannian Military still held across the island.

As an afterthought, the prince opened up another comm. link. A few seconds longer than he was used to passed before the person answered, covered in a full body pilot suit with helmet Lelouch stared into the screen. "Soldier, Rank."

"P-private si-err Your Highness!" He answered almost looking as though he was about to snap a formal salute before he realized he had to keep his hands on the controls.

He raised an eyebrow. _Still a private? _"You saved my Knight back there private. I am hereby promoting you to corporal effective immediately."

"Sir!" This time the devicer did snap off a hasty salute. "Thank you sir."

"Its your Highness corporal!" One of his aides snapped before Lelouch held up his hand.

"Report directly to Jeremiah once you arrive at the rendezvous. I imagine he'd want to meet you himself. You'll receive further instructions from there. Goodbye."

Without waiting for a response he cut off the feed, eyes panning over the map.

-U.C.0079-

Hi everyone. This is my very first fic on this site, though I've been lurking here for a while.

If there are grammatical errors let me apologize in advance for them. English is not my native language.

If there are any questions please feel free to ask I promise to get back to you (as soon as I figure out how).

Also, I will be accepting suggestions for the mobile suits Loyd's developed. They can be from virtually any of the various Gundam universes, and don't necessarily have to be Gundams themselves. The only mobile suits excluded from the "suggestion box" would be Zeon Mobile suits of the One year War Time period and Gundam Wing.

I'm excluding the Gundam Wing Mobile suits specifically, because since I'm accepting suggestions for the Mobile suits I'd like to have a diverse array of mobile suit options if at all possible. And I have an inkling suspicion that if I left the particular "Gundam Wing" series open, out of ten suggestions I might get, eight of them will be for the Death Scythe and the Wing Zero. I'm even kind of leery about Gundam 00 but it might not be so big as to cause that problem yet... _

Well, regardless I hope everyone enjoyed this. If you have any other suggestions or input feel free. I'll try to correct the mistake if I can. 

Have a good day.


	2. Chapter 2

The night turned to day, and as the sun breached the heavy clouds over head in a series of lances. Hail and shards of ice fell from the heavens. The heavy atmospheric disturbances roiled the sky like a furious, bubbling cauldron.

Throughout the entire base the absurdly loud beeping of safety horns blared as trucks backed up. Orange safety lights blinded anyone who caught the flash in their eyes as nearly a hundred work crews ran through the entire facility with safety cones and the orange signal batons, steering Knightmare laden cargo trucks to their designated repair and restocking areas.

Jeremiah Gottwald, personal Knight to prince Lelouch Vi Britannia the first, eleventh prince to the throne, commander of the Japanese occupation defense forces; jumped off the ejected pilot cradle as soon as they came to a stop, barking out orders and calling for the base commander to be brought to him immediately for a succinct report on what was happening, or what had happened along this particular front of the battle lines.

"Lord Jeremiah!" Villetta called from atop her Knightmare, the cockpit open to the freezing snow. "His highness wishes to speak with you."

Not two seconds later had the lime haired man turned on his heel and marched straight for her, all but ignoring everyone else as he made his way towards the cable that would pull him up to her Knightmare.

"Its good to see you alive." Lelouch remarked as soon as he caught sight of the man in the frame's cockpit camera the little smirk on his face speaking volumes as technicians and analysts kept running to and fro behind him.

"Thank you your highness." He answered with a nod. He would have bowed but it was rather impossible from where he was hanging. "Forgive me for cutting off your call earlier I-" 

Lelouch waved him off. "Jeremiah, I hereby now and forever grant you permission to hang up on anyone, myself included when you're facing down a twenty meter war machine. Guilt free. Now-" The smirk left his face. "What's the status of your men."

"So far we've suffered fourteen casualties. Two were ours, the other twelve were from the other battalions and battle groups. We managed to disable only one of their suits, but the damage we inflicted on their landing forces must have been significant." He assured.

"Your Highness." Villetta spoke from her seat. "Perhaps, with the enemy consolidating their position around the landing HLV transports we could attack other areas, retake some of the bases that were lost with their thinned battle lines.

Lelouch shook his head. "No. Even if we gave them a bloody nose when their main force landed there's still no doubt that we've suffered more losses at the hands of their Zaku than what we may have inflicted. Right now they'll have the advantage no mater where we strike." He paused. "Here are your orders-"

Jeremiah had the impulsive urge to stand a little straighter where he was dangling.

"First and foremost, that pilot, The private, that attacked the Zaku, find him. He is transferred to your command effective immediately."

Jeremiah peeked his head up over the overhead of the cockpit armor, easily finding a Sutherland frame with the distinct scorch marks of a Zaku heat-hawk on what remained of its left arm. "I see him." He said.

"Good. Tomorrow I want you and what's left of your chosen men to travel to coordinates 1362, 538. We'll be setting up a forward command post near the ruins of old Osaka."

Jeremiah frowned. "Forgive me for asking my prince but; Why exactly? We have nothing in the ruins of old Osaka to defend."

"No we don't. We bombed the hell out of it and left it as a crater when we took Japan almost seventy years ago." He answered calmly, now slouching in his chair, head resting on his fist as though in lazy thought. "As of right now, the largest group of enemies is squarely in western Japan. The forces to the east are just a hand full of mobile suit teams that were probably meant to harass us with guerilla tactics. Two can play that game though. We can bog them down with guerillas tactics instead, quite possibly pick them off one at a time. Since the main force is in the western front I am pulling back all disparate battle groups and broken battalions to three points. Osaka, Maizuru and Takechiu. This will be our net to ensnare them."

"You're abandoning the entire western half of the island?" Villeta questioned. "We have four Sakuradite mines present there.

"We still hold five." Lelouch shrugged. "It took forty Knightmares to try and mitigate a single Zaku Mobile Suit team and still you only managed to take down one. The forces in the west are scattered and cut off. They would certainly bog down the enemy in a quagmire but I'd rather just win this and not wait until Cornelia and Schniezel pull their own continents out of the fire." He smirked. "You all know how much I loathe sharing credit.

-U.C.0079-

"I have a feeling that this, Jeremiah Gottwald is going to become a real irritant in this campaign."

Kallen grunted as her hands dug into the exposed machinery of Tamaki's shot-to-hell engine block. Trying to manually open the cockpit hatch. Evidently the emergency release inside was jammed and the electronic controls, like everything else, was completely non functional with the engine blown half way to hell.

Quite frankly she was more than willing to let him sweat it out til the techs got there. But there was the issue of the engine having lost all its heat by now and the snow of the nuclear winter beginning to seep through the metal and Tamaki was, as he so eloquently shouted _"freezing his balls off"_ after nearly three hours in the machine.

They had to avoid hypothermia and frostbite and since they didn't even know how much longer it would take for the tech crews to get around to a single Zaku, the task fell to her.

So here she was, hunched over, fingers freezing, her arms and face splattered with oil and black engine grime as she had a flash light stuffed into her mouth in order to see into the dark hole that was considered the most advanced piece of war machinery ever devised.

_Useless piece of shit..._ She cursed.

Finally, she seemed to realize that Shin was talking to her. "Hmm?" She grunted

"Gottwald." He repeated. "I have a feeling that he'll be one of, if not the most dangerous enemy we face in the up-coming battles. Predicting our landing zone and being able to take down a Zaku in two seconds flat is no small feat. He paused, scratching at his bearded chin. "Although it could have perhaps, been a plan of Prince Lelouch." He amended.

She snorted, actually going through the effort of pulling her hand out of the tight space in order to pull the flashlight from her teeth. "Please. Some pampered Britannian prince that's never even been in a real fight predicting our landing zone on the fly? Never gonna happen. It was Gottwald." Her grip on the flashlight tightened eyes alight with indignant fury. "And I almost goddamn had him!"

"Don't go underestimating your enemy." Shin drawled. "If you'll recall by all reports Prince Schniezel is a tactical genius. Who's to say his brother isn't cut from the same cloth?"

"Even if the rumors are true that makes Schniezel the exception. Not the norm." She shot back before her fingers gripped the opening mechanism. "Aha!" She cried triumphantly before pulling.

The machine resisted for a moment before a groan of strained metal brought the cockpit doors open, just enough for Tamaki's shout of "Alright!" to reach her, along with Tamaki himself as he wiggled out of the blasted, freezing war vehicle.

Kallen stood up, making her own way back to her own kneeling Zaku, Matsunaga's cyclopean camera panning this way and that way as it searched for potential enemies.

She snagged her foot into the cable harness and activated the retracting mechanism before she spoke again. "Besides what does it matter. All we have to do is keep pushing forward until Britannia is done. It doesn't matter who exactly we're fighting right now, or who's responsible. All that matters is winning next time."

The captain sighed. "I suppose. In the opening stages of war no side really cares who's on the other side. Its infamy and fame that makes people care about who's fighting...or history."

Her features scrunched up. "Right. Any word on damages yet?"

The man nodded though berated himself mentally when he realized she couldn't see it. "So far we have nearly three tons worth of non perishable foodstuffs that are damaged, burned, or completely unusable. Of the eight HLV's that touched down we have, five suffered severe damage to the storage bays. Three others suffered damage to their mobile suit bays and engines. All n all at least a third of the main landing party suffered something.

She grimaced as she got back into her nice, comfy, _warm_ cockpit. "Thats...bad."

"It could have been much worse." He said. "But its definitely not ideal. We'll still be able to complete the invasion but we all might have to do without every now and again."

The half-britannian sighed with over dramatized flare. "I suppose there go the hot showers and three square meals."

Matsunaga chuckled wryly.

-U.C.0079-

It was already approaching night by the time Schniezel stepped out of Loyd's lab, behind him was Kanon Maldini and an anxious Cecile, Loyd's assistant. "But sir these are just prototypes and all the test runs we've done haven't included combat stresses we can't really be sure of-"

He reached his hand out as he walked, passing by an attendant who bowed at the waist and handed him the file. Situation reports no doubt. His staff knew how he preferred to operate by now. "Combat tested or not-" He drawled, and Cecile, respectfully shut up. "War is here and we'll require weapons to fight it. I would like them shipped out tomorrow."

He could _feel _the woman gnawing on her lip behind him. "But your highness-"

"You have your commands." He drawled, leafing through the file as he walked. "I'd rather have them delivered before the U.C.R. places anti aircraft emplacements that would make transport far more troublesome miss Cecile."

With a clear dismissal the young lady had no choice. Bowing low at the waist she turned and made her way back.

He could appreciate her mindfulness of the situation, really. Loyd had just giggled with glee at the thought of his toys being sent off to crush the competition; utterly certain of their superiority and his own genius. The good Cecile had taken the time to fully warn him of the potential fallacies of the machines he was sending to Lelouch and Cornelia.

Right now though, he didn't have the time, or the patience to be bothered with adhering to strict caution.

Two for his own forces, two for Cornelia and two for Lelouch.

Those would be the fronts with the heaviest fighting outside of the provinces and locations outside of Pendragon. And those areas were being held by the Knights of Round, each one of the legendary devicers standing front and center like the final bulwark against the U.C.R. space forces that had landed around the globe seeking Charles Zi Britannia's head. Standard Knightmares might not be up to taking down Zaku, but the custom, high spec frames the knights used were another matter on their own, nevermind when coupled with the legendary skill of the Knights of round.

The only exception was perhaps, China, but quite frankly, as much as he may consider Clovis a decent statesman, he was not the greatest tactician nor did he have the best people in his employ unlike himself. If he gave him one of these machines there were higher chances of it being misused, or wasted. Clovis would simply have to do without for the time being until the rumored mass production models, that were quite a bit more than rumors, from Pendragon were forced out the door and sent to the front lines.

"Whom will be receiving what then Your Highness?"

"We will be keeping Loyds forth and sixth model. Cornelia and her Knight Guilford will be more suited to models three and five. To Lelouch we will send the red one and that Lancelot he was so excited about."

"Understood." Kanon bowed his head. "I will inform the scientists and return with the adequate reports on your available, remaining forces combat readiness.

"Do so." Was the imperious command, eyes never leaving the numerous after action reports that had already been gathered for him.

-U.C.0079-

"Pilot!" Jeremiah saw the pilot jump so high he almost slipped off the cockpit edge to fall five meters to the hard, icy road below.

The helmeted head turned this way and that way, finally stopping when it rounded on him. The soldier saluted smartly. "Sir!"

Jeremiah gestured for him to come down, a second later the pilot was touching ground and releasing the raise cable.

"Firstly I'd like to thank you for your actions during the attack. You most likely saved my life."

"Thank you sir!"

"You will remove your helmet when speaking to the Knight of Prince Lelouch." Villetta hissed. "Have you no sense?"

The man stiffened, properly chastised. Another soldier rushed to his side, drawing Jeremiah's attention as he saw the youth raise his arms up to pull the helmet off.

It was a requisition solicitation. He signed it, knowing it was the Knightmares and supplies he had requested for himself and his remaining men for the operation his prince was sending them to Osaka for.

"Now, you've been promoted to corporal" He said as he signed, then turned his attention back to the pilot; "and you have-"

The face was not one he was expecting, and the pilots hesitation in removing his helmet was now plainly obvious.

An Honorary Britannian.

Jeremiah blinked.

The Honorary Britannian system was set in place nearly twenty years ago, proposed, at first, by a member of parliament whom had instructed Clovis in his youth. Back then it was merely called "The reformed numbered citizen act." In which a citizen of a colony, after having solicited, and proven worthy of, reintegration into Britannian earth society, was allowed, along with his family, to be brought to earth to live. With most of the rights and privileges granted to all Britanian citizens, save of course the right to hold political office and the right to enter into military service. Clovis, at the age of fifteen nearly seven years ago, before the offset of the war had refined the act, and created the "Honorary Britannian Citizen" Which gave all of the previous rights and removed the last two restrictions, making them by and large, true a Britannian.

The act had of course, faced some opposition. But Clovis' amicable nature and rising popularity in the high society functions he so enjoyed hosting and being a part of gave the youth enough influence through sheer charisma to push through what Schniezel would have needed to push through with respect, Cornelia with fear and Lelouch through guile and machinations.

Even so, Schniezel he knew, _had_ supported the project, if only because it was merely another method of control. If the conquered people were stripped of their most brilliant scientists, their most charismatic speakers, their best athletes it was just another way to keep the yoke bearing its proper weight.

Still, it was a new concept, one that many were still trying to get used to, or were refusing to accept at all in some cases. Especially now with the war

Still, His prince wasn't part of the latter. Thus, neither was he. Lucky for this one. "Your name soldier?"

The pilot, though grim faced as though resigned for some rebuke, saluted again. "Suzaku Kururugi, of the eighth armored regiment sir."

"Eighth." He drawled, thinking. "That would be Marquise's command. I'll inform him of your transfer to my unit as soon as possible. In the mean time gather your personal belongings and anything else you might need. Villetta will inform you of our next operation corporal." He threw a look at the woman over his shoulder. She looked as though she'd just been asked to swallow a lemon but he knew she would do her job, no matter how she might feel about it personally.

"Understood sir!" Suzaku snapped off another salute.

_'Gonna be a real ball of sunshine this one.' _He thought to himself. One stickler for formalities and protocol on this unit (namely himself) was more than enough. With two even he might become annoyed by it soon enough.

-U.C.0079-

It was nearing midnight before Lelouch finally allowed himself to pull away from the display screen.

Specific orders had to be relayed down to the last detail. Troops needed to be tallied and supplies needed to be verified.

A veritable whirlpool of ceaseless information had assaulted him since six AM when the atmosphere was first broken, seemingly a hundred years ago by his inner clock, and even his gifted mind was pounding with what was quickly becoming a brutal migraine.

He needed an aspirin. Or ten.

More than that though.

The door opened and he allowed the first smile he'd had all day to spread across his face.

"Brother?"

Sayoko wheeled his sister into the room. Sweet Nunally looked concerned, her hands held slightly above her legs her way of reaching for him without actually holding her hands out.

"I'm right here." He pushed past his exhaustion, standing up placing his hands over hers and trying to sound as cheerful as he could.

Her face creased with concern. She pulled his gloves free, touching his bare hand. "You're tired...and worried."

He was, on both counts. Its like taking muskets and bayonets to tanks, the difference in tech level between the Knightmare and the Zaku. Three months for those still rumored Mass production models still seemed absurdly far away.

It'd only been seventeen hours and it already felt like they were on their last legs.

"I'll be fine. Things are always hectic in the opening acts." He conceded.

She frowned. "Are you sure you're okay? That you're up to this? I can speak with the others if-"

"I'll be okay." He smiled. "Besides I'd like to know too. Even if only Cornelia and Euphy might answer right now.

She nodded. He marched over, pressed a button on the table, he dragged his chair over in order to sit down beside her and then they waited for the broad network call.

It was something Euphy came up with just after the colony drop. The fear of losing her siblings and not being able to find any of them had birthed the notion of a single, hard line network where any of the many siblings could press a single button and instantly call everyone in a multi-way call or specify a group of siblings.

Lelouch normally did a broad call. No real reason to specify since half his siblings either didn't know him and thus, had nothing to speak of or didn't answer out of a usually mutual dislike...Like Gwinevere. The people who answered regularly were, Clovis, Cornelia, Euphy, Schniezel and of course Nunally when they were apart.

"Would you like some tea Britania-sama." Sayoko asked.

"Please-"

"Earl please." Nunally requested before he could interject. Knowing it helped to put him to sleep rather than keep him awake.

"Of course." She bowed and made her way out.

It was almost ten minutes later before there was any change. On the far wall a screen lit up, revealing the stern, hard features of Cornelia Li Britannia, her dress was immaculate, but her hair was wet with sweat. She was in a Knightmare cockpit no doubt.

With nearly seven hours time difference it'd probably have been midnight for her when the invasion hit. Five or four o'clock now. Which would explain why she didn't seem nearly as tired as him.

Either that or she just had more stamina...

"Is something wrong Lulu?"

"Checking in before I keel over." He groaned, rubbing his aching forehead.

Cornelia smirked. "Long day huh?" She smiled at Nunally, it was tragic the princess couldn't witness the rarity. "Hello Nunally."

"Hello sister Cornelia." Nunally smiled back her face turning to where she knew the camera to be.

"Cornelia opened her mouth to speak when the feed opened up again another camera panning to reveal-

"Odysseus?" That made Lelouch sit up a little straighter in genuine surprise.

While it was true all the Britannia children were, by blood, siblings, with such an immense family it was natural that there could be certain cliks or groups between them, mostly through generation. Odysseus was the _eldest_ brother. The very first in line for the throne. Already in his late thirties, he was closer to Guinevere than any of them and vice versa. While he was closer to Clovis, since Clovis had adored his mother, or at least her beauty in his paintings. Euphy and through Euphy Cornelia, and through Cornelia, Schniezel.

And while always a kind, gentle person when they met, and as he was with virtually everyone he met, they really didn't share much in any sense of the word. He was already in his teens when Lelouch and Nunally were born. He had no reason to truly interact with them, unlike Cornelia and Schniezel. There was nothing to bridge the gap between them.

Being grossly overshadowed by Schniezel, who was the _favorite_ to take the throne it seemed only natural that the quiet, contemplative man would be in favor of simply rescinding himself to the background of all their lives.

To have him call so abruptly was...needless to say something he hadn't predicted in his wildest imaginings.

He smiled though it was a frail thing. Lelouch noted the concern there.

"Hello Lelouch, Nunally." He greeted softly. "I'm afraid I can't truly speak long. When I noticed your call, with the time difference and the chaos I realized this might be the only time that I might be able to reach you in time."

The Black prince reeled. "In time? You're in charge of the former Russia aren't you?" What could he possibly have to say that would affect Lelouch a hemisphere away.

Odysseus nodded. "Yes. But I have to warn you. Not an hour ago I received a notice. A Knight of round will be traveling through Russia to translate into the former China."

"And they'll be headed here afterward." He deduced. He'd be calling Clovis otherwise. "They're moving through Russia and the particularly harsh climate of Siberia to keep secret. Is it to keep their arrival a secret or their departure?"

Cornelia's face had scrunched into a displeased frown. "What's going on Odysseus? What's got you so worried? Father might just be sending reinforcements with Japan's Sakuradite being so crucial.

"I would agree normally but" Odysseus hesitated. "...Father he...He sent Bismark."

Lelouch's blood turned to ice in his veins and the fear that settled into Cornelia's face was a pale echo of the gaping pit that had just opened up in his stomach.

Bismark was, by his nature the virtual boogeyman of the upper echelons of Britannian society. No one, not official, not knight not nobleman not even _Royalty_ wanted to receive an unannounced visit from the Emperor's Knight of one.

His personal executioner.

"We've never been close Lelouch and I'm sorry for that." Odysseus said sadly. "But, truly if you can think of any reason, any at all that father might be sending Bismark to you we might still fix this before its too late."

Lelouch shook his head. His mind coming up completely blank.

Did he wish for Charles to curl up and die already? Yes.

Would he like to be the one that pulled the trigger? Absolutely.

Had he the time or the capacity to do it while the empire was still struggling in merely surviving the nuclear winter?

God in heaven knew he didn't.

Odysseus looked behind him, at someone off screen. He nodded before turning back. "I'm sorry to cut this short but I must leave. If you need any help Lelouch, let me know."

And just like that the man that had dropped a bigger bomb on his lap than the rebel forces arriving at the crack of dawn this morning winked right out.

"Brother-"

He turned to look at Nunally, noticing Sayoko had returned with her tray.

He nodded and the maid set it down.

"Lulu-" He heard Cornelia speak

"How's Euphy?" He interrupted her, taking a sip.

"She's fine. I boarded her on a plane to Pendragon myself a few hours ago. Lulu if-"

"It'll be fine Cornelia." He interrupted-as much for his own sake as for Nunally's. One would worry, the other might go so far as to fly down here herself and confront Bismark if she felt he needed her help. "Now that I know he's coming I can more than likely settle this amicably..."

He paused.

"Besides, Bismark actually might be coming here in secret to help. I genuinely can't think of any other reason." He said honestly holding back the only thought that did occur to him for Nunally's sake.

_Unless Father wants to use the chaos of invasion to finally be rid of me._

Cornelia frowned.

It was no secret how..._loud_ meetings between the Emperor and Lelouch could be. The so called _Black Prince of Britannia,_a name born more a mocking insult from the nobility to explain his "Black sheep" status in polite company, being the son of a commoner, made no secret of when he disagreed with the Emperor.

In fact their worst confrontation _bar none_ had been just after Mariane's death years ago. The thirteen year old Lelouch had looked for all intents and purposes as though he'd been ready to strike the Emperor down where he stood, and her father had ordered everyone from the room. Something he hadn't done..._ever_. Charles Zi Britannia did not mince words and cared one whittle what anyone thought of his proclamations in that room.

To this day, no one, not even she, or Euphy, or even Nunally knew just what was said behind the vaulted doors. All they knew is that nearly an hour later Lelouch stalked out of the hall with a palpable fury and the Emperor remained, features carved from stone and revealing nothing.

So her skepticism at Lelouch's assurances wasn't entirely unwarranted. As much as she might not want to believe it. She knew her brother _hated_ their father.

"If you need me-"

"I'll be alright." He looked at her, with tired eyes but a small smirk. "We'll do this again soon. I figure Schniezel's too busy, or asleep actually, to answer as is Clovis. And you look like you're just getting started with your headache too. I'm the only one that's done for the day."

"Rest well." She said.

Lelouch nodded shutting off the broad line.

He held Nunally's hand.

She frowned. "You need to rest." She demanded. Patting his hand she tugged, using the force to attempt to get him to rise.

He did so, and the groan that escaped his lips wasn't something he could prevent.

"I will see the princess to her rooms." Sayoko assured as he moved to take the wheelchair for his last nightly duty of seeing his sister off to bed.

He hesitated Nunally smiled up at him. "Its alright. Go."

Such was his exhaustion he didn't even utter a word of protest. Nodding and all but stumbling out to fall into his bed, dead to the world.

Nunally waited for a moment, having waved Sayoko away a bit before she leaned onto the table, her hands panning around, searching before she found the little console.

She clicked on it.

A minute later Cornelia's face appeared again. "What's wrong Lu-Nunally?"

"Sister." The gentle girl smiled sadly, eyes closed. "If Bismark is coming, and brother needs help..."

She trailed off. But Cornelia caught her meaning easily.

"I will do everything within my power." She affirmed. "Everything."

"Thank you." She smiled though this time there was some mischief in her voice. "How is Sir Guilford these days."

Cornelia raised an eyebrow, confused, and her tone showed it. "Guilford? He's...fine. I didn't know you two were close...or even acquainted for that matter." She frowned in thought.

Nunnally smiled, sipping at her own, now lukewarm tea. "You introduced us once. He has the hands of a true Knight. Any girl would remember him."

Though she couldn't see. She could almost _feel_ Cornelia's grimace. She could definitely hear it. "I...see...Don't you...don't you think he's a little too _old _for you?"

Nunally stopped mid sip. "Oh...if he's too old for me is he too old for you too?"

The question was so genuine, so perfectly curious Cornelia couldn't even call on her anger to cover her embarrassment. She all but choked on her own spit as she sputtered. "That's not-he's-I-"

Nunnally smiled angelically, utterly -_sickeningly-_ innocent.

Although...next time she supposed she should ask Cornelia if she was getting shot at before teasing her. Her poor sister seemed like she wouldn't really do very well in a fire fight at the moment.

-U.C.0079-

The next morning when Lelouch woke, he was still in the clothes of the previous day, wrinkled and smelling enough to make him curl his lip in distaste. The Prince wasted little time after returning to the conscious world, of peeling himself off the soft, comfortable, sinfully sweet cradle of his mattress, showering and making himself ready to face the second day of this war.

As he finished adjusting his clothes he garnered a look outside. Staring up at the harsh, ribbed ceiling that hung above them like a sky in and of itself.

It could never replace the real sky though.

The domes were the latest in Sakuradite based technology. Absolutely _massive_ in scale and scope. A metal barrier between the Britannians that could afford to live in its artificially maintained environment and the harsh, cold, freezing planet they had left. It was based, loosely off the same technology that had birthed the colonies.

Approximately one point eight billion people around the world resided in city domes. The rest resided on its outskirts, surviving in any way they could though food was offered to anyone and everyone that came seeking it.

He could say this much about Charles; the man recognized that a hungry populous, was a useless one.

The domes that weren't used to house people, were used for agriculture and were located in some of the absolute _worst_ conditions that could be met. If the enemy wanted to rob them of their food, they'd have to do it while making it through places like Syberia, Alaska, _The north bloody pole_.

How Charles was able to consistently transport that food across the whole damn globe every day like some freakish cross between the tales of Old Saint Nick and the Tooth Fairy was something the Emperor of Britannia had chosen not to divulge, and Lelouch could not at all blame him.

Quite frankly it was what kept the people on the outside, loyal to them, and infuriated with the invading forces. If only just. No one could look on a habitat dome and not _see_ the gross divide between the privileged few and the rest of the world.

For his part...he missed the sky.

He shook his head, turning on his heel and marching out of his rooms towards his office.

The second he placed his hand on the doorknob Lelouch felt a cold shiver crawl straight down his spine but it was too late for the signals of his brain to reach his hand.

With a twist and a push he opened the portal.

"Oh Lulu..."

The shiver returned ten-fold.

Before he could even gather what was happening he was nearly placed in a headlock as an overenthusiastic girl coiled her arm over his shoulders. "Your late Lulu! And I had the courtesy to get up early and have these all ready and printed out for you!"

Lelouch sighed, nearly resigned. "Milly. You printed those out ten minutes ago. He swiveled his eyes to the side. "And with my printer."

She scoffed. "Please. As if you could know if someone used the-"

"You leave the paper cradle up. I always close it." He stated factually.

She looked annoyed, then her smile returned megawatt bright.

She shoved the papers in his face.

"What's this?"

"Your speech silly!"

Lelouch blinked. It was too early for this. His brain was sluggish. "I have a speech?"

Milly turned him on his heel and began pushing him back out the door. "Of course! You have a press conference in an hour silly! Can't have a Press conference without a speech!"

The eyebrow hiked a little higher. "I have a press conference!"

"Millicent Ashford!"

The blond cringed ever so slightly, a sheepish smile on her face.

Lelouch almost wanted to smirk and sing _"You're in trouble lalala!" _But refrained.

He had royal dignity to uphold after all.

Orange hair blazing like a fiery halo around her, Shirley Fenette was glaring at the blond, who now, rather than pushing him was hugging him tight, using him as a human shield, knowing Shirley wouldn't hurt him just to get to her.

"Hi Shirley!" She ventured.

"Don't you '_Hi Shirley_' me!" The girl growled

She opened the book in her hand, revealing it to be her daily planner, with everything scratched out and a big red "Speech Time!" Splattered all over the page "Do you have any idea how much work you've made me re-do because of this little unscheduled speech!"

"Its an invasion!" Milly cried in her defense. "I'm his PR person and PR person says he needs to reassure the people!"

"I'm his assistant. I could have easily fit your speech _Tomorrow! _ Now Everything after Eleven AM which is in _twenty__minutes_ is thrown completely off kitler which means I have to make calls, reschedule, draw everything back down the ladder, reconfirm changed appointments!"

As she went through the list, sweet Shirley looked ready for downright _murder. _Milly, sadly opened her mouth. "It can't be worse than the last seven times-"

"_Thirteen" _Shirley bit out flames all but spewing out of her eyeballs.

"Right...ehehe. It can't be worse than that right!? You should be used to it by now!"

"You should be quiet now. Else she might just throttle you in your sleep." The Prince chuckled, amused. She laughed and continued huddling behind Lelouch. the only man in the world that would be safe to hide behind right now.

But it seems she just had to _test _that theory didn't she. "Will you be my blanket then Lulu?"

Shirley's face...

Oh...dear...god.

"_A camera! A camera! My Kingdom for a Camera!" _He thought.


	3. Chapter 3

"At ease."

With a snap-crack of boots hitting the ground, the entire room shifted into a "rest" stance. Feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind the back.

Tohdoh marched into the room and reached his desk. The commander of the Japanese invasion force wore a brutal scowl, eyes like a hawk.

"As of 0-200 hours, we've received preliminary intelligence reports from our people in the North Americas."

Behind him, the projector blanketed the wall with pixeled, super-enhanced images.

Kallen, at the far left of the room, second row, vaguely recognized it as an airport, an earthbound air transport and refueling station that she'd seen in some old vids once or twice.

She also saw planes and Knightmare frames...bigger Knightmare frames if that was actually a full grown person she was seeing standing in the pictures edge.

They seemed much more custom and eccentric in their design as well, with aesthetic and seeming function ranging wildly outside of one or two, she couldn't even begin to guess what combat role some would specialize in.

"Prince Schniezel is the commander in charge of the North Americas. Out of his primary headquarters in California-" Tohdou continued, the images behind him shifting and altering as he spoke. "-We have extensive reason to believe he has been funding, and preparing numerous prototype Knightmare frames that will be a match for the Zaku Mobile suit at the very least. He is now preparing to deliver some of these advanced suits to other parts of the world, we're not certain where but it stands to reason that at least some of these machines will be delivered here, Japan is too important for the Britannian's to lose. Its the same reason we were sent here in the first place."

The image behind him winked out, then appeared again. This time with the superimposed map of Japan with red lines and dots naming and pointing out the locations of various airports.

"With Prince Lelouch drawing his primary battle lines near Kyoto" Toudou continued. "dividing the island in half, this eliminates half of the potential landing zones for whatever aircraft might be arriving. Add in sheer logistics and the difficulty he would face in transporting these frames from the other side of the island, or even the smaller islands, four more airports can be reasonably ruled out. That still leaves our intelligence team with six airports, five of which are deep behind their lines."

"Too many targets to hit at once and reach in time even if that wasn't the case." Matsunaga, who was standing infront of her, muttered, though it was primarily to himself.

"Going by tactical sense-"

_'A guess'_ she amended in her head.

"-Prince Lelouch will bring these frames towards his primary battle group in Kyoto" If he does so the closest airport available to him would be the Central Japan International Airport.

The red lines and names disappeared, leaving only one.

"This Airport is connected to Kyoto by highway and by magna-rail track." The map showed one blue line and one red line slithering across the map to reach Kyoto. "We don't believe the Magna rail has the capacity to load a mobile suit or more than one, it was meant more for passengers than cargo that means we'll have to hit the highway."

"That's nearly thirty miles behind enemy lines." Someone shot out from the other side of the room, Kallen didn't see who he was.

"So it is." Tohdoh drawled.

A woman, Chiba if Kallen recalled correctly, stepped forward as she cleared her throat as Tohdoh sat. "Our strategy is as follows."

The images changed, showing suit teams, battalions and tank forces across the map, both Britannian and theirs. "We're going to harass their front lines, draw the commanders attention away from the highway, long enough for a team to get in via air drop, steal or destroy the prototype Knightmare frames, and pull out to an extraction point here. If the suits are not in transport, or did not arive at the airport, you are to conduct a fast attack raid on the airport itself, which should largely be lightly defended with no important cargo making its way there. We can at least damage one of their primary import routes."

As she spoke, the arrows and "units" on the map moved forward, engaging no less than five forward bases, while one unit bypassed the entire battlefield to head straight for the highway and then a new arrow sprouted to head to an EZ eight miles south of the same highway.

"Estimated operation time for the assault team will be twenty-four minutes engagement, seven minutes extraction. Estimated operation time for the decoy forces will be one hour and six minutes.

"A lightning fast raid by all accounts." Another of the team leaders said. She managed to see his profile, but didn't really recognize his face.

"Greased lightning." One added. "A mass assault like this to take place, be executed and withdrawn from in little more than an hour? This is unbelievably fast."

Kallen had to agree, while _combat_ against a single enemy took minutes, if not seconds, _battles_ especially ones with multiple fronts and stages often did take hours; as in, more than _One _which is what Chiba and Tohdoh were proposing they limit themselves to here.

"Quite frankly, we don't have many forces that are combat ready." Tohdoh drawled.

Chiba picked up from there again. "The Zaku combat teams that landed have all received varying degrees of damage. And while many of the Zaku's that touched down on HLV transports are functional, many more are not, given the enemies raid. We don't want Jeremiah Gottwald, or Prince Lelouch, or anyone who is in charge of this location to know just how thin we're spread at the moment and we _must_ minimize damage to our remaining forces otherwise we risk a war of attrition that can only favor Britannia in the end. Their resources are far greater than ours and they have the logistics to transport them more efficiently."

With that said, Tohdoh once more took charge of the briefing with Chiba stepping back.

"The assault team has three steps. Get in, Disable the threat, get out. Simple. The distraction team, by way of necessity will have quite a few more. But first things first, who volunteers for the assault team?"

Before anyone could say or do anything, Matsunaga, her captain, stepped forward with a sharp salute.

"Shin Matsunaga. Leader of Zaku team four with Kallen Stadfield and Shinchiro Tamaki. Requesting permission to hit the Brits where it hurts sir!"

Kallen smiled.

-U.C.0079-

Lelouch raised an eyebrow. "Britannian Mobile Suits?"

On the other side of the screen, Schniezel's glass clinked as the man stirred sugar in his drink. "A pet project I've been working on. No doubt you'd heard."

Lelouch nodded. "I'd heard rumors. How many do you have?"

"Six." He replied. "Two we will be sending to you, two more to Cornelia and two I will keep for my own forces. I'm calling to inform you of their arrival in the Central International airport within-" The prince paused in a short mental calculation. "Eleven to thirteen hours, give or take."

"It'll give me some time to sleep then." He drawled. "I wish we still had the Osaka airport available. Then I could simply drop them on Jeremiah. He's one of the best pilots I have, if not the best; its where they'll be going anyway."

Schniezel seemed to think for a moment. "Osaka? That's where you're gripping the knife then."

Lelouch shrugged, smirking.

Schniezel sighed, though the faintest of smirks tugged at a corner of his mouth. "Keep your secrets then little brother. I assume I don't need to tell you that chances are high, that if the enemy caught wind of this they will plan an attack to eliminate these suits correct."

Lelouch spun a chess King between his fingers, smirking. "Of course you don't. I already have quite a few ideas in case they're so foolish."

The smirk tugged a little higher. "I leave it to you then Lelouch."

The press of a button and the screen blacked out.

Lelouch stood, dusting himself off before making his way out.

The door opened.

"Shirley." He greeted.

She held her pad over her chest, somewhat glaring at him. "I thought you were heading off to sleep. You have to be up earlier than usual tomorrow-"

"Alright, Alright." He chuckled raising his hands defensively. "I'm going."

"And make sure you eat something." His PA demanded in a huff. "Don't think I didn't notice you skipped breakfast and lunch today."

Lelouch made a note of it.

It was _unheard of_ for _anyone_ to speak to Britannian Royalty like this. Lelouch actively sought to be a unique case. Consciously encouraged it. He preferred it like this. He suspected it had to do with what he'd seen of his mothers own sense of informality when he was growing up. He took that aspect of her, and, most likely in an attempt to emulate her...honor her perhaps, he'd amplified that trait in himself up to eleven as much as he consciously could.

He _liked_ it when Milly arrived at any and all hours as though he worked for her, not the other way around. He _liked_ that Shirley and Nunally would both get on his case about something or other whenever he neglected details that were more mundane or personal in nature. It kept him, for lack of a better term, grounded.

...

At least that's what he told himself. Truth was, the horrified looks on someone like Guilford's face whenever he, or someone like him came around was just priceless.

He paused, a thought coming to him.

"Ahh, yes." He snapped his fingers, swiveling around with a perfect about face. "Shir, could you give me your pad for a moment. One last order I have to send out."

She didn't look pleased, but she held her pad out for him.

A few quick key strokes, a few priority email recipient codes punched in and voila. Lelouch was officially done for the day and ready for the next.

"Thank you Ms. Temple I promise I'm off to bed now." He smiled, pretended to not notice the blush she had despite the reproachful look of concerned admonishment and bid her goodnight.

-U.C.0079-

Suzaku took a sip of his coffee, hands digging into thick coat pockets to try and keep some semblance of warmth while sitting out here.

Even with a tent, a heater behind him, and an army of communication computers and server towers generating a toasty heat, the wind would just rip right through this thing. Normally the effects of the forever winter weren't this bad, but evidently the atmosphere didn't appreciate being made to look like a cheese grater just a week ago and so lightning storms and blizzards were far more violent and potent than usual.

Intelligence estimated it'd be another ten to fifteen days like this then it would calm down to be something far above twenty below.

Intelligence could go to hell as far as he was concerned.

The tent flap opened and Suzaku was greeted by a tall man, covered from head to toe in thick material to stave off the cold, shoulders baring flakes of snow.

There was a grunt and the scarf and hat came off, revealing commander Gottwald's features as he brushed his hair out of his face.

Suzaku moved to stand. "Si-"

"At ease." Jeremiah said without preamble, marching in and sitting down on the spare chair. "Any movement."

"Heavy movement." He confirmed. "They've not left their established battlelines though, so it could easily be preparation just the same as it could be them consolidating their defenses sir."

Jeremiah hummed, looking at the screens. Then he turned his gaze to Suzaku, hand reaching into his coat and pulling out a file.

One with his name on it.

"For whatever it might be worth." Jeremiah drawled as he tossed the file onto the desk. "Allow me to extend my apologies on behalf of Prince Lelouch.

Suzaku stiffened, blinking in surprise. "Wha-"

"Your records." The lime haired man drawled, leaning back in his chair, fingers laced together over his legs, one leg crossed over the other. A pose he'd seen Lelouch adopt several times. Or perhaps one Lelouch emulated from him. "They're pristine. You've been enlisted in the Britanian military for over three years and have been passed over for promotion several times. Even after you broke the local records for Knightmare frame combat simulations it took eight months for your application to be approved." The man frowned.

Suzaku swallowed, blinking. "Sir that's not necessary. I can understand their hesitation with the war and everything. I merely have to prove my loyalty...and things will be better."

Jeremiah stared at the Japanese youth for a few seconds as though trying to measure whether or not he should believe him. "A stain on My Prince's administration is a stain on him, and myself. Thus, I apologize on his, and the Britannian Military's behalf. Know that your status as an Honorary Britannian will affect nothing from this point on. You have my word that you will be judged and measured on your merits and your actions.

Suzaku swallowed. It wasn't with emotion. He was trying to reign himself in and not get his hopes up.

"Thank you sir." He finally said, standing to salute.

Jeremiah nodded, he could tell the young man was still wary of his words. Perhaps pretty words were offered before.

Still he would learn this time was different.. He already knew of one particular Honorary Britannian in his Princes employ that was the best at what she did and was treated as such.

Sayoko was a choice many had balked at, even he; had he been honest with himself.

She'd proved them all wrong.

Just from his impeccable service record alone he knew, beyond the mere _gut feeling_ this Kururugi boy would be the same.

"Tomorrow you were scheduled to have the shift from two to four PM. That has been changed. Report to Villeta at that time instead." Suzaku saluted. "Yes sir!" He stood. Returning the salute he gathered his scarf and winter hat before marching out the door.

-U.C.0079-

The next morning, he opened his door to, unusually, find Sayoko standing there, waiting for him.

He blinked. "Sayoko? Something wrong?"

The maid bowed. "Princess Nunally would like for you to join her in the communications room Lelouch-sama."

Lelouch raised an eyebrow in curiosity. His mind was always a little sluggish in the morning, so he blamed that to account for the ten seconds it took his brain to make the necessary connection as to why she'd be in there. He smiled. "Ahh. I see."

He stepped into the comm room and didn't make it half a step before he heard the enthusiastic cry-

"Lulu!"

He smiled towards the image of his second favorite sister. "Hello Euphy."

It was night where she was, the black sky with twinkling stars served as her backdrop. She looked as though she wanted to jump through the screen to hug them both. He leaned down and kissed Nunnaly's cheek in greeting, getting his own kiss in turn.

"I was so worried!" She said, huddling a little more into her winter coat. "I couldn't get through. Satellite coverage has been down around Pendragon for a long while now.

Made sense. Most likely the Rebels wanted to cut the palace off. Also likely, Charles had devised some countermeasure that had taken a bit to kick in. Hardline underground hubs perhaps.

Didn't the bastard have the courtesy to roll over and drop dead?

Lelouch then picked up on an interesting little detail that had slipped his mind.

"Euphy." He began. "Isn't Pendragon covered up by a Dome?"

His sister clammed up.

His eyes narrowed. "Did you sneak out _again!_"

"Sister." Nunnally called, chastising in a tone that was as stern as she could hope to make it. "You know you shouldn't-"

"I'm sorry!" Euphy blurted, frowning and puffing herself up. "I have to see what's going on. I can't just stay behind the palace doors and take the information that's filtered to me! I have to get the whole picture myself to know how I can help."

Lelouch slapped his forehead. "Did you even _try_ taking any guards with you?"

"Of course not! They'd never let me out of the palace without a fully armed escort and running it by Father, or worse, Sister Cornelia!"

It was too early for a headache like this.

"Would you get back to the palace grounds? _Now!?_" The very last thing Lelouch wanted was seeing, or hearing about Euphy getting mugged, _at best_.

"Sister." Nunnally's softer voice cut in. "Its not safe. Go back."

Euphy looked like she was in a stubborn mood. Evidently it was the genes. Only way he could envision Euphy acting like Cornelia holding a flag ontop of a mound of enemy corpses or a contested hill when she wanted to make a _poin__t_. It had to be genes.

"I'll stay out here for another hour."

"No...go back now." He growled.

"No!" If she were anyone else, he had no doubt the call would have cut off at that point. But Euphy rarely wanted to leave being angry with someone or leaving that person angry in turn.

An oxymoron considering her gentle nature. She'd get in your face and wouldn't back down til the issue was resolved.

"Why not meet in the middle?" Nunnally put in. "Thirty minutes?"

"Twenty."

"Twenty five." She stuck out her tongue at him.

He sighed, aggravated. "Can't you just...get a job in an intelligence office somewhere? Help behind a desk. No one, not even royalty is safe when it gets bad outside the domes. Food is taken care of but medical supplies, fire fuel and such, isn't exactly something we have an abundance of. If people want to hurt you they won't recognize you and it might even be worse if they _do_ Euphy."

"You know Father has his own people at the palace and Cornelia won't even let me sign a requisition form for my own clothes. I..." She paused, a thoughtful look crossing her eye. "Wait Lulu-you've given me an idea. I'll call back later, I'm glad you're okay bye!"

And before he could get a word in edgewise she clicked it off and the screen went black.

The sigh that escaped him made Nunnally giggle.

"She was always determined." She complemented.

"Bullheaded...and smart enough to pull off the stunts she cooks up half the time."

Nunnally giggled again. "Do you remember when she convinced you to go swimming with her in the Palace fountains when I was six?"

Lelouch felt a smile. "Cornelia was furious...Mother couldn't stop laughing."

"They asked you why you did it and sister said-"

"_But you never said __we__**couldn't**__ swim in the fountains." _He lilted his voice in a piss poor imitation of gentle Euphy.

It made Nunnally laugh though.

He walked around her chair grabbing the handles. "What would you like to eat Nun?"

"Hmmm." She thought. "_Crepes_."

He chuckled. Perhaps not the healthiest, but her favorite. "Alright then."

-U.C.0079-

Kallen rested in her Zaku fingers drumming on the dormant controls as she felt the bumps and lurches of the sled over the tracks that slid the kneeling machine into the bay that would carry them through.

They didn't have many of these transports available even before a good chunk of them were scrapped in the raid that had hit their landing party.

Right now, they only had two, enough for four Mobile suits, by the end of a week or so, they should have as many as six, enough to drop twelve mobile suits in any location. The equivalent of three Tank Brigades.

For now though, four. With another twenty eight mobile suits taking part in the raid, acting as the spearhead for nearly twice as many tanks.

Almost their whole undamaged invasion force in terms of their Mobile Suit forces.

Plenty of raw power to put the squeeze on the pampered Prince and the arrogant Brits.

The screen flickered to life, revealing Ohgi sitting in his usual place. Headset over his ears, mic over his mouth. "Kallen. How're we doing temperature wise?"

She swiveled her eyes to the thermostat. "Sixty-nine and going down."

"The inside of the transport should provide a bit more insulation. Just try to bear with it as long as possible. We can't have the Brits sensors discovering Minovsky Particles in the air without risking giving away our objective.

"Don't worry. I packed my winter gloves." She smirked, then let it drop. "What about their transport? How much longer before it lands?"

"Not sure." He answered honestly. "I'll let you and your team know the second it comes within range of our sensors."

"Could they be using a stealth transport?" She asked, the thought bubbling to her head.

"They could. That's why we stuffed you into these suits now. Over an hour before estimated arrival time. If they are we'll have to move fast. But the second they're below a thousand feet, no stealth fighter in the world can hide from our tech teams."

"_At that height they'll only be a few minutes away from landing. It'll be cutting it close." _She thought. "I heard Tamaki's been bitching since he heard he was staying behind."

Ohgi rolled his eyes. "You have no idea. The man hasn't shut up. Honestly I might shoot him."

She snickered through her teeth.

In all reality, and not to _brag_ but _She_ wasn't just the best Pilot on this team but arguably the best in the entire Japanese invasion force. Her simulation results were off the charts. Shin could think on his feet and was a fairly decent tactician. So he led the team.

Tamaki was...

Tamaki.

He was an ok pilot, he was an ok infantryman, He was an ok communication worker.

He was just o_k_ and being ok was enough when the strategy was to use Mobile Suits as spear-points for ever major push. It was their greatest weapon.

Still, to charge in and wreck his mobile suit on the very first engagement, with, seemingly no effort on the part of the enemy was probably enough to get him on the back burner and replaced by someone the Higher ups had ignored on the ladder in favor of him who had gotten slightly worse results in the Mobile Suit simulations. If his recklessness would costthem time and money repairing the suit, his margin for error was not something command was going to tolerate with resources as limited as they were.

Shin would speak for, or against him when the pannel asked. She didn't know how he leaned and quite frankly, she didn't want to know. Less drama that way.

Another screen lit up, Shin.

"Kallen." He said. "When we hit ground we're going to attempt the destruction of the enemy mobile suit prototypes understood?"

"We're not capturing them?

"We don't have the gear to determine if the tonnage on those machines are greater, or less than the standard Zaku. If we try to capture one, it could be that the transports won't be able to lift off. Two Zaku's come awfully close to their weight limit as it is."

She nodded. Made sense. "Alright. So I guess capture is officially out acording to HC?"

"We'll have to see how the situation develops. I'm just giving you the default run. If the situation demands an alternative we'll do so."

"You hate improvising." She commented.

"I also hate sitting in a cockpit that's already at sixty eight degrees and steadily going down, but here I am." He answered snappishly making her grin.

"Aww its not so bad. Its colder in space than it is down here."

"Space is home." He answered. "This isn't."

Kallen frowned.

They were fighting to retake their homes...

At least she thought so.

It was true that many of the colonists believed that Space, after a hundred years _was home_ but...why go through all this, if they had no intention of coming back?

Was Earth just "The distant Battlefield" That people generally didn't care about because it wasn't their back yard?

Had that made it easier to drop a Nuclear ladden colony over their heads?

They'd killed Britannians, anyone could get behind that...but they'd also ruined earth for the foreseeable future.

She, personally, was fighting for _this_ home...Not space...they had space. She wanted this place, her homeland. The place where her grandfather had been born. She wanted Britannia off its soil and driven back to the crater that was left of London. The pit they deserved.

Idealist? Perhaps. It as her reason though.

It was always a little disconcerting that some, if not most of her fellow colonists didn't share the sentiment.

The thought that what she was fighting for was just a spit of dirt they'd just as readily glass as they had London...

She shook her head and felt the last rumble as the sled was locked into position and her Zaku knelt obediently, waiting for the battle to come.

-U.C.0079-

He flipped the radio switch on. "Tower control this is Flight seven eight one two we are now officially entering Area eleven airspace please confirm over."

There was a crackle of static, the voice of the tower control man coming through a moment later. "Confirmed seven-eight-one-two. Got you on our scopes. Please state classification level of package over."

"Classification level Charlie zero one one four gray. Please confirm over."

There was a pause. "Confirmed seven-eight-two-one. An escort will be provided accordingly when you land."

"Appreciated Tower." The pilot answered, and felt the radio go silent in his ear.

In the cargo bay, two suits, one white, one red, lay quietly, awaiting delivery to their proper owners.

-U.C.0079-

This chapter is, admittedly, shorter than I'd like, but the next chapter will be much longer and this seemed like a better point to cut it off and pick up again than later.

Now for responses!

**To BahamutX978:**

Unfortunately, I don't consider myself nearly knowledgeable enough on the side stories that I would venture to use them in the narrative. So I'd have to say no, other side story characters/events will not really be referenced here overmuch if at all.

**To Guest:**

A mixture of Propaganda, and the fact that he's the one that, consistently, day in and day out, delivers and provides a steady supply of food and supplies for their survival. And the fact that, as much as they might resent it, they resent the Colonists that dropped a nuclear bomb the size of Manhattan Island over their heads.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed it, R&R please. Its the only Currency I make off of this. :D


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